Thursday, November 19, 2015

Spinning Babies eases birth by helping baby rotate more easily through
the pelvis. Less pain and intervention is readily possible. As the Spinning Babies Lady (that's me on the left). I began a
personal mission to make birth easier for mothers, babies, AND their
doctors, nurses, midwives and doulas. I observed birthing women,
combined information from sources outside of the birth world, and
developed further some of the brilliant insights of those who’ve walked
before me.

Observing birth, I noticed what most stuck or stalled
labors had in common: where in the pelvis the baby waited and the angle
of baby's head in relation to that part of the pelvis. In fact, my
midwife friends said I could "see inside." By that seeming talent, I've
developed an "assess and match the technique" approach that apparently
has not been considered so fully before.

Now it is true that
the position of the baby is well shown in medical and midwifery studies
to be a leading cause of long labor and even cesarean. Every birth
attendant knows that. But knowing how a baby can be helped out of a
difficult "fetal position" is less understood. Force is too often the
chosen solution - pump in the drugs to strengthen the uterine
contractions or manually turn the baby by hand. Though both approaches
have some risk, they are sometimes necessary and often effective.

A
common, more gentle approach is to wait, and some providers get the
mother moving. This approach is often successful but not if baby is
stuck. So far, then, help has been random and so are the results.
Meanwhile, too many women suffer hoping someone will finally know what
to do.

Women are too often told, "the baby is too big" when the
angle of the head that is the real issue. A better angle of the head
(called flexion) lets even a large baby fit the pelvis of most all
women.

For years, the emphasis on "The 3 P's of Labor:
Passenger, Passage, and Pressures" has been the excuse for pouring
Pitocin (Syntocin) into a woman's veins and even using life-threatening
Cytotec (unapproved by the FDA for use in birth) to pressure a woman's
cervix into opening with too little regard for the passenger or passage.

I've
offered the world a new approach of Balance, Gravity, and Movement, the
"3 Principles of Spinning Babies. Showing women how to "balance"
muscles and ligaments so they aren't too tight or too loose. The pelvis
becomes more mobile and the support structures to the womb lengthen,
soften and “make room for the baby.” Balance allows the baby drops into
the pelvis with a tucked chin and helps labor to begin –and continue– on
its own. And if labor has stalled or stopped progressing, I offer a new
perspective on assessment and matching solutions.

I teach
providers to ask, "Where is the baby?" Then we choose a technique for
that place in the pelvis. Is baby engaged? Which way does baby? And, how
far down has baby descended? Asking where gives the clue to match the
right technique and allow labor to finish as nature intended. And it
doesn't matter much to the success of the technique if the mother has
pain drugs or goes completely natural. That's the mother's choice.

Being in balance may add comfort to pregnancy, ease the birth, and
lessen the pain so women can cope with confidence. Then a woman's desire
for natural birth has a better chance of blossoming into the birth she
wants for her child.

My website, SpinningBabies.com has given free and comprehensive information for 14 years.

Track
record: I‘ve already offered the world a Belly Mapping Workbook and a
couple of videos, professional workshops and 6 trainers to give Spinning
Babies day-long workshops. I have an amazing Director of Optimism
working 30-40 hours a week and a Director of Practicality working only 5
hours a month, new part time office support, an accountant, and myself.
This would be enough if I were not hoping to reduce suffering in birth
around the world. Those that I’ve helped say I have already changed the
world of birth. But honestly, Spinning Babies has not accomplished her
full potential. My heart is breaking right now because so I could offer
so much more. I need a professional support structure for my 5-year plan
to ease the way the world addresses stuck birth.
But isn’t this
what midwives already do, you might ask? There are many smart and gentle
midwives. These are the very professionals at my workshops telling me,
“I wish I had known this 30 years ago when I started,” and “I could have
used this knowledge yesterday, we would have avoided that cesarean.”

I need you to help me make a significant contribution to babies and
mother, providers, and birth practice that lasts into the future.
Doctors could turn force into "balance" when a long labor requires their
expertise.

Please help me and all Spinning Babies enthusiasts to get past the hump.

Though Spinning Babies isn't a non-profit, the model IS to serve
foremost. You see, I was a small time midwife with a breakthrough idea,
not a person planning to start an international business. The little
engine that could is not just going over the mountain to the children on
the other side. Help build the track to run with this message. Spinning
Babies is going global and that's a lot of children! I need HHhelppp!!!

What will your donation do on a tangible basis?

· A Spinning Babies Book for parents in several languages

· A provider reference book to look up what to do when

·
A Trainer Training expert hired to head up the training for my 6 eager
trainers and train the next group to expand Spinning Babies message
around the world (I've found her, if I can hire her!)

· An
Office Manager will manage my time for creative efforts like a book and
an app (hiring October 2015, shall I call him the Time Lord, since he'll
be scheduling my every project? oh, I so want this chance to succeed!)

· An app to help solve common labor stall issues

· If we exceed expectations, we may be able to fund some research!

True Quote: "I have been practicing Spinning Babies for the past 2
years to the best of my knowledge, and with using the Side lying release
and Abdominal lift, I believe I have saved at least 50 people from
having a cesarean section! This is so empowering to women and myself as a
labor nurse." Jennifer Crews, RN, California

That’s one nurse,
two years, 50 major surgeries averted. That may be 25 less infections,
could be 30-50 more babies handed straight to their mothers, perhaps a
month less postpartum pain for each woman, and several women without the
struggle wondering why their “body didn’t work.”

Kate
Lawrence, CNM, in Ohio said in the months following a Spinning Babies
Workshop for nurses the head of the department noted the drop in
cesareans and asked what had been the impetous.

Lorenza Holt
says, the stalled labor is less often a “failure to progress” than it is
our “failure to assist.” She is now teaching midwives in Mexico the
Spinning Babies approach to include with their traditional knowledge
about natural birth.

Spinning Babies isn’t necessary
for all birthing women. But it is necessary to counter the leading cause
of unanticipated cesarean – the labor that doesn’t bring the baby.
Whether it’s called “failure to progress,” or “baby is too big” or
“malpositioned fetus,” Spinning Babies has immediate help and prevention
throughout pregnancy that will help more women and babies than ever
before. That gives a doctor, midwife, or nurse some real satisfaction.

Your donation gets you in on the wonder behind stories like these:

True Story: A man and woman have been in hard labor struggling to give
birth to their child for 3 long days. No midwife lives on their
Indonesian island. Something is holding up the birth but they don't know
what to do. The woman's exhaustion is growing worse. Her husband takes
her to the dock where the ferry will come and take them to the hospital
sometime the next day but the father doesn't know if his wife and child
will still be alive when the sun comes up. He sends his neighbor by
rowboat to get a midwife from another small island without a hospital.
She's got internet and (amazing to me) has read the Spinning Babies
Website. She identifies the problem, does the technique and 15 minutes
later the baby slips out--right into the sand!

Yes, you can save lives even where no cesarean is available.

True Need:
World expert Obstetrician in Frankfurt, Germany invites me to bring a
technique to study after seeing me present in Brazil. Forward-leaning
Inversion to allow a baby stuck sideways in the womb to turn and line up
with the pelvis. His university setting would allow before and after
proof. How will I leave necessary office tasks to prepare and oversee
research. Other doctors, nurses, and midwives ask for research options
for their sites.

True Story: British midwives, some of the
best-trained midwives in the world, wait with a mother on a gurney cart
outside an operating room. They have tried all the tricks of their
training and the baby seems too big to be born naturally. The OR is
being cleaned, however, and they have to wait. “As long as we're
waiting,” they say to one another, “let's try that technique from
Spinning Babies.” In 15 minutes, they call into the Operating Room,
"Never mind, we have a baby in the gurney!"

True Need: Korean
physician with a 10-bed maternity clinic has an 8% cesarean rate. She
feels that rate is too high and knows Spinning Babies will reduce the
unnecessary surgeries in her practice. US rates of cesarean are over
32% and we know that 1/3 of all women are not unable to give birth if
they were just supported to do so. She wants a protocol for when to do
what.

True Story: A woman is induced at 40 weeks gestation
and wants more than ever to have a vaginal birth of her 2nd child after a
cesarean was done for her first. The midwives say her cervix is staying
at 6 cm for 4 hours and she needs a cesarean. She asks for 1 more hour.
Intense use of body balancing techniques including release of tight jaw
muscles and then the sacrotuberous ligament changes the size of her
pelvis and she dilates to 10 in 3 subsequent contractions. She pushes a
long time but has her baby without any further intervention.

True Story: Midwife is about to give up after all her known techniques
aren't helping a mother in a stalled labor. She texts me and over the
next 14 hours I guide her through steps including releasing the jaw
muscles, connective tissue holding the nose, releasing adhesions in the
leg sockets and muscles to the pelvis. Her pelvis opens, as proven by
the sudden increase of the size of the rhomboid of Michaelus (how much
of her sacrum is seen under her skin) and she dilates to 10 cm. The
baby is born after much pushing. Not a one of these techniques is taught
in midwifery school or medical training.

True Text: “I am stunned at the amount of learning that can happen at one birth even after nearly 20 years of going to births!”

This
last comment is from my midwife friend Vicki who is both a CPM, the
certification of the North American Registry of Midwives, and a CM, the
certification of the American College of Nurse Midwives. Her excellent
education didn’t provide the kind of answers to release the connective
tissue spasm that pulled the mother’s tailbone into the path of her baby
and stopping the birth at 6 cm. In fact, she had never read nor heard
that body work that she herself could learn at a birth could change the
size of a woman’s pelvis when the pelvis was only smaller due to
something like a shortened ligament.

Some of the
techniques are on the website and some have yet to be written down.
Nurses and midwives need a “what to do when” reference. Where's the App?
is as common a question as Where's the Book?

Many
places in the world could use a picture book without much text to show
midwives how to assess --without needing technology-- when baby isn’t
coming out and what to do about it –without needing technology-- that
the birth attendant just doesn’t have access to in remote locations, and
parents can’t afford to pay for when it is available.

Some
words from the book, A Path Appears, make me think to add some comments
here. Some may assume making birth safer and less painful might make low
resource areas even more populated. Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
share that about 20 years after families stop losing some of their
babies to the effects of poverty they self regulate to smaller families.
Difficult birth not only harms babies but mothers, too. Long obstructed
labors increase fistulas, hemorrhages (excessive blood loss), infection
and incontence of the bladder and rectum. Easier birth is not just
potentially enjoyable but improves health outcomes.

If Spinning
Babies is going to contribute to massive improvements for birthing
women, the office is going to need development and the book needs to be
written!

It takes more than great ideas. Myriad steps include
planning, legal advice, time management, design, production,
coordination and love. It takes many of you to do a little and a few of
you to do a lot.

Raising a child may take a village, but so will raising the understanding to help babies get born safely!

Would you or your family member have benefited from Spinning Babies information?

Did you or your family member benefit from SpinningBabies.com or something you learned from one of the workshops or products?

Would you have liked your birth to have been easier? And mothering more
confident because of a joyful birth? Or even just a straightforward
birth?

Would you like your birth practice to be more physiologic, have less interventions and more solutions?

On
the 6th day of labor in a birth center in Korea, a doula asked to try a
technique she learned from Spinning Babies. The doctor agreed. “and to
his surprise, mom was fully dilated and at +1/+2 and baby's head was OA.
…C-section averted! Thank you so much for teaching me this. I am
thankful that I was there and that my client had such an easy birth that
I could help. Now, two more doulas know this technique. I had talked to
them about them before but I don't think they believed until they saw
for themselves.”

Last night I was with the wonderful Adrienne Caldwell as she led a small group of enthusiasts and parents through a hands-on protocol of massage techniques for Breech Balancing.Wait, pregnancy massage like relaxation?

No, massage is working with muscles and ligaments that have shortened from living in gravity to return to normal length and function. Shortened muscles are tight and may pull pelvic bones closed. Fascia may be released. Fascia is a thin but strong sheath of open membraneous fibers that carry fluid and so electrical current to help our muscles work and give our joints their range of motion.

Ok, but what is balancing?

Not too tight, not too loose.
Allowing baby the space to spontaneously move into a head down and bottom up position.

Three Chiropractors were present and learning from Adrienne. Parents come to learn what to do that may help a breech baby flip head down. This night a couple came for help for their posterior baby. I wasn't sure they needed it as they'd had two births without surgery before and this baby was then likely to rotate in labor. Some women prefer to be active in preparing for birth, adding balance and usually gaining immediate comfort.

Adrienne was really sweet to me and said to the class, I'm going to suppose you've already done the list atSpinningBabies.com on the Flip a Breech page.

Including

Moxibustion

Rebozo Sifting

Forward Leaning Inversion (from Carol Phillips, DC)

Breech Tilt

Open Knee Chest

Diaphragmatic Release

Here are some of the things Adrienne Caldwell adds:

Address the front of the pelvis

Round ligament release (part of the Chiropractic Webster maneuver) or similar to a trigger point release on the under side and lateral side of the round ligament.

Release tension in the inguinal ligament.

Tensor fasciae lattae...

Posts release (See Liz Koch if you want full resolution!)

Wait, do you have to buy coffee to get babies to flip? Is it the caffeine, then?

No no, no caffiene. That's a muscle... there's another little one above that crossing under the hip bone down to the top of the leg joint. That's gotta loosen up too.

Why?
Because the ribs and neck and all the body happens to connect through the train track of muscles and ligaments and fascia. And there's a few more for the pelvic floor, psoas, and respiratory diaphragm.
Massage therapist with special pregnancy training can do these things in a gentle way, respecting the looser joints of pregnancy and avoiding labor inducing ankle points and such.

Adrienne is establishing this wonderful protocol that she will teach at the Spinning Babies 2016 World Confluence and which may be recorded for distribution. Her intuitive hands and extensive knowledge of physiology makes her my "go-to" friend in learning and getting an occasional massage.
(Adrienne, when can you fit me in?)

Breech babies have a human right of birth. But where will such compassion and skill be found today? Not many places. So meanwhile, gentle art of breech balancing is growing. Nicole Morales, CPM, and Deb B. are having success in San Diego, Carol Gray in the NW, and Carol Phillips in Maryland. Deb McLaughlin in Duluth. There are several more people, too, lovely practitioners in our Minneapolis/St. Paul area. So many it is hard to list. Chiropractors, like the three magical women that were with us last night, Sharon Prahl, DC at 7600 Parklawn (around the corner from Flutterby
Birth Services where we meet in Edina), Amber Moravec in St. Paul at Health Foundations, and Angie Graper,
DC. We also have Acupuncturists, and Massage Therapists, and you know I love CranioSacral Therapy and Myofascial Release and Maya Abdominal Massage.

Please, Mamas, start considering hands on help between 32 and 34 weeks. Don't wait much beyond that. We see success is highest between 32-34 weeks, with diminishing but continuing success for some women after 36 weeks.
If you've had a head down baby before or this baby was head down at 32 weeks before flipping it maybe easier to get baby head down.
If you are under 35, don't have a family history, don't have low thyroid, or a history of an accident including a twist, etc.
Otherwise start about 30-32 weeks. Is that early? I don't think so even though some others do think so.